[posted by Sheila McAllister-Spooner]
When I practiced public relations, I prided myself on having the ability to manage public relations in a proactive, strategic manner. As many seasoned PR professionals can attest, this was no easy task, particularly when we were faced with challenges or crises that needed immediate attention. Now that I have jumped to the PR educator side of the fence, I feel a professional obligation to teach undergraduate and graduate students how to conduct proactive public relations in an increasingly reactive society. Generally speaking, the students are very quick learners. It is relatively easy to teach students how to write press releases, fact sheets, and even social media releases. It is significantly more difficult to teach students how to “connect the dots” from those strategies and tactics to the organizational and PR objectives. So how then, do we teach the students how to see the big picture? I think we can start by being proactive in our teaching, by anticipating the students’ initial reactive instincts, and reining them in. Then it is our responsibility to methodically guide the students through the process of creating a public relations plan with strategies and tactics that, when executed, can effectively achieve the long-term goals of the organization.
